It was a great night for The King's Speech, Christian Bale, Melissa Leo and Natalie Portman, among others. But according to bloggers, the Twitterati and other film commentators, the 83rd annual Academy Awards went down as a very bad night indeed for hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway.

While the pair will not quite go down in history as the Mick Fleetwood and Samantha Fox of Oscars hosts, their debut shared stint was roundly condemned by most as detached and underpowered. The lion's share of the barbs were reserved for Franco, who was variously described as smug, distant, bored.

"In what could go down as one of the worst Oscar telecasts in history, a bad and risky idea – letting two actors host – proved out in spectacularly unwatchable fashion on the biggest of all nights for the film world," wrote the Hollywood Reporter's Tim Goodman. "Anne Hathaway at least tried to sing and dance and preen along to the goings on, but Franco seemed distant, uninterested and content to keep his Cheshire-cat-meets-smug smile on display throughout."

"Hathaway worked her derrière off," the Washington Post's Hank Stuever wrote, "[but] Franco came off like that lacrosse boy you wish your daughter didn't hang out with so much, sort of heavy-lidded and smirky."

In his live blog, the Guardian's Xan Brooks wrote: "They're not doing badly, exactly, but they sure as hell aren't doing good. Where's Steve Martin? Jon Stewart? Ricky Gervais? Hathaway and Franco just seem a shade underpowered. They are idling at half-speed, scared of giving offence."

Meanwhile, the Telegraph's Toby Young was even more scathing. "[They] actually made me feel nostalgic for Billy Crystal, something I didn't think was possible," he wrote. "It was as if the telecast's producers were so desperate to compensate for the fact that this year's big winner would only appeal to the over-50s that they decided to hand over hosting duties to a couple of children. When Franco appeared dressed as Marilyn Monroe and joked that Charlie Sheen had just texted him I felt like chewing my own arm off."